The persuaders: How Lake | Flato makes progress

‘Environmentalism is a bad word [in Texas],’ confides David Lake. ‘We never use it,’ concurs Ted Flato. The oil state is not known for its sustainability – yet the 2024 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal winners are driving cultural shifts among designers, clients and the wider public in practical and persuasive ways.

Both Lake | Flato founders grew up in Texas and have thrived on the opportunities and challenges posed by the state’s hot temperatures, low rainfall, expansive landscapes and sprawling urban patterns. Although they now work on projects US-wide, the practice is still based there, with offices in San Antonio and Austin. 

Sustainability isn’t a new issue for the firm; it’s inherent to and inextricable from its dedication to context and landscape. ‘It came naturally to us,’ explains Flato. Since the beginning, in 1984, Lake | Flato’s buildings have responded to their specific conditions and actively connected to the environment. Ranches were an early staple which established and honed the practice’s approach, before it moved to more complex projects and technical solutions. The all-American typology demanded passive cooling measures, semi-outside spaces and engaging with the landscape.

Recently, the pair spoke in London at the 2024 AIA/RIBA Keynote Lecture and visited a few practices. They emphasise London’s contrast with Texas. Grimshaw, Heatherwick and Chipperfield are doing extraordinary architecture here, they say, but they sure as hell aren’t doing any ranches.

‘Shade, shade, shade, shade, shade, water, water, water, water, water,’ says Lake, counting off each repetition on his fingers. Both founders spent most of their youth outdoors – kayaking, sailing, hiking, fishing and camping – and know first-hand what’s required in hot climates.

This was put to the test designing Arizona State University Polytechnic Academic District on the site of a decommissioned airbase in the Sonoran Desert. Five new buildings sit lightly across a 14-acre site with open-air atriums, projecting porch-like balconies, angled roofs and steel louvres. Native desert planting, reinstated by landscape architects, is surprisingly lush – colourful flowers and leafy trees sit alongside cacti and shrubs. A new desert gully crucially improves water harvesting. You get the sense that the scheme couldn’t exist anywhere else. It’s highly functional yet fine-tuned to, and clearly of, its locale.

Lake | Flato is also in the business of persuasion. The phrase ‘everything’s bigger in Texas’ does not apply to sustainability, and environmental arguments are a hard sell. However, presenting them from a practical standpoint has won people over. Of the regularly occupied space in Austin Central Library, which completed in 2017, 80% enjoys natural daylight. But rather than frame this from the start as an energy saving measure, Lake | Flato flagged exactly how much money the client would save on energy bills over time and how it would improve the feel of the space. ‘It starts with, why is this going to make their world better?’ explains Flato. ‘Then indirectly it becomes, why will it make the world better for others?’. With each new client, it’s an incremental process of developing trust, educating, navigating them towards low carbon decisions and resource efficiency. ‘The ultimate success,’ he adds, ‘is that when we leave them, they become advocates, bragging about how well their building works.’ Project by project, little by little, Lake | Flato is changing minds, creating ripples, and making sustainability make sense.

Both view Texan architect O’Neil Ford as a mentor and credit him with galvanising their design philosophy. They worked under him for five years and speak with admiration about his re-use of historic buildings, technical innovation, contextual approach and artful practicality. Lake holds up a copy of the book The Architecture of O’Neil Ford: Celebrating Place. It’s well-thumbed and Post-It notes bookmark pages.

Animating urban downtown areas and making them viable, social hubs are also part of the practice’s remit. ‘Over time, we’ve sprawled apart,’ sighs Lake. ‘Europe is shaped by trains and we, unfortunately, are shaped by the car.’ Meagre public transport means there are few district hubs and insufficient communal spaces. Yet, these downtown areas will be crucial in absorbing Texas’ rapidly increasing population. The state is already home to 30 million people and the Texas Demographic Center projects that this will rise to over 47 million by 2050. An urgent solution is needed to increase density in considered ways, while preventing encroachment into open landscapes – where apparently there are few planning restrictions.

Lake | Flato’s Pearl Brewery District in San Antonio, completed in 2017, offers a compelling model. The abandoned 10.5ha brewery site appeared to offer little; a few older buildings and a scattering of warehouses. However, in seven phases over 18 years, it has been transformed into a varied and lively area where people want to live, shop, spend time and leave their cars. New and repurposed buildings host a melting pot of homes, hotels, restaurants, bars, offices and the Culinary Institute of America campus. Most striking of all is the outdoor offering. Open plazas, small pockets of green, an uncovered amphitheatre and a river walk weave between the structures. Looking at film footage, it’s clear that everyday life is unfolding; people are eating outside, standing by market stalls, walking dogs and playing in fountains.

Initially, however, the brewery client took some convincing. ‘He didn’t believe that people wanted to live downtown!’ exclaims Lake. But they took him on a journey to Seattle, Portland, Vancouver and Mexico to demonstrate that a lively pedestrian district was both possible and desirable. ‘The thing about Ted and I,’ Lake continues, ‘is that we don’t give up. We have incredible tenacity.’

Throughout our meeting, the warmth and friendship between the two was obvious. They readily admit that their ideas don’t always align, but value the difference and discussion. There’s a gentle rhythm to our conversation; Lake switches topic, Flato guides it back to the question, and together they generate new thoughts and musings, handing their tale back and forth. I barely have to say a word.

Today, 40 years after founding the practice and now with 150 staff, their roles have inevitably shifted. ‘Our job now is being thoughtful, practical editors,’ reflects Flato. They advise at key moments, facilitate collaboration across studios and feel they are still learning and having fun. They’ve nurtured an ethos which is no longer entirely theirs. It’s been shared and adopted by others, both inside and outside the firm: ‘We’re confident that as soon as we stop showing up, the work is still going to be really good… We’re lucky they still want us!’ Staff have left over the years and set up their own Lake | Flato-adjacent practices across the state. A network of designers and clients who aspire to create better built and natural environments, in contextual and climate-conscious ways, is accumulating. Like O’Neil Ford before them, David Lake and Ted Flato have become mentors to the next generation in Texas.

Watch David Lake and Ted Flato’s 2024 AIA/RIBA Keynote Lecture